I’ve just hung up on "Rachel" for the one-hundred-fifty-first time this month 
Canadians (especially those who have subscribed to the infamous Canadian Do Not Call list and started getting MORE calls) will know exactly what I mean. I expect similar stories are coming out of most American states.
This is getting ridiculous, and it’s starting to seriously degrade the usefulness of my land-line phone. What I’d like is some sort of STAR 419 function that would immediately alert my phone provider that the immediately preceding call was an unsolicited telemarketer. I’d like to see regulations allowing the provider to charge an annoyance fee to the flagged number when enough independent callees respond *419, and I’d like to see immediate cut-off of outbound service when a big cluster of complainers pops up. Canada is likely to see an election soon, so maybe we can have an issue we all agree on 
OK, Doomers, does that make sense? Let’s start a discussion. Anyone has a better plan, we’d love to hear it.
John-
I’ve started getting solicitations on my cell phone. They keep warning me that the warranty on my car is about to expire. That’s pretty funny when you consider that my car is 1994 Ford.
I have however solved the problem with my land line. I receive no solicitations on my land line because there’s some issue with the wiring in the house that my family tech support is disinclined to fix. Of course, no one else can call me on it either, but I guess you can’t have everything.
Twist,
I get those calls too… on my office phone number. I was lucky enough about 6 months ago to be watching TV (yeah, I know, who does that anymore?) and some story about how cell phones can now be solicited to and you’d better add it to the do not call list asap.
Anywho… you have a 94 Ford?
Is it still running, or like 50% of all other Arizona cars, parked in the front yard on blocks?
OK, i’m just kidding.
Chuck
I get the car one all the time too – they would call around the office I used to work at. I’d also get one from “my” bank, calling about a problem with “my” account. Sad part is, people fall for this stuff. It’s like those old email viruses – I got into work one morning and my inbox was filled with messages titled “I LOVE YOU!” and “VIRUS – DO NOT OPEN THE ‘I LOVE YOU’ EMAILS!”.. but wouldn’t ya know it, people kept opening them..
Quick tip – if someone calls you and misses two opportunities to use a real name, it’s a scam.
“This is (your car dealership) calling about (your car)”. “This is (your bank) calling about a problem with (your account)”
Linenoise -
The Love Bug was my all time favourite. Expanding on the Wikipedia account, if I recall correctly, what happened was Lamores(?) had written the code as a project for a course at the local community college. He’d promptly got kicked out for his pains, but then got tanked up at a party and accidentally put the thing into the wild (via a 5 1/4 inch floppy!) The neat feature was the thing mostly blew up inside corporate firewalls. The kids got away with it because there were no laws to prevent them. The authorities hadn’t anticipated the scenario, and the kids didn’t really know what they were doing anyway.
The nastiest one ever was Sony’s root kit. We got onto that one early, and there might even be an e-mail from Russinovich some where in my work archives to prove it. It was an amusing exercise convincing my community choir director that it was for real, a few days before the MSM picked it up. I think Microsoft eventually bought out Russinovich’s company so that there would never be such an embarrassment coming from an independent source ever again.
John M,
I heard a comedian once advise that to get rid of these telephone solicitors all you just need to put on a fake sleazy voice and start asking the person on the other end some slightly disturbing questions…
Solicitor: “Hi, my name is Tom. I’m calling about product ABC”
Phonecall Recipient: “[Heavy breathing]…So, Tom, what are you wearing?..[More heavy breathing]…”
Looking at it that way, it would take the stress out of receiving these calls – and make every caller just another eager audience waiting to help you hone your acting/improv skills!
(That is, I guess, until you get one that reacts well to the sleaze… or until you mistake a family member for a solicitor).
Then again you could always do what Seinfeld suggests – ask the caller for their HOME number so that you can call them back when they are busy doing something else.
Daughter: “Dad, Phone for you.”
Me: “Who is calling?” response: “The Bank”
Me:”Is there a problem with my accounts?”
Her: “No sir, we were just calling to see if you would like to take advantage of any of our new offerings”
Me: “I’m on the national do not call list and I don’t want any calls that aren’t related to security”
Her: “Sir your account specifies that we have the right to contact you regardless of whether you are on the do not call list”
Me: Darling don’t you think you can rectify that little bit because if you can’t I can always move my accounts to someone more accommodating.”
Her: “Yes sir, I will see to it.”
Me: “Thank you so much, and lots of luck with your telemarketing.”
and lo and behold it worked.
Chuck-
I’ll have you know that my 1994 Ford Econoline van just turned 200K today. It doesn’t exactly look like it just rolled out of the showroom, but it’s still going strong and it’s PAID FOR. I like that in a car!
I was on Broker Outpost awhile back, and I realized how much the world had changed. There were some old timers who had the sense not to borrow to the hilt during the boom that were chatting. They were bragging about who had the oldest and least impressive car. I’m wondering when that attitude becomes more universal-when instead of bragging about all the goodies they have, people start bragging, “No, I didn’t go to Europe, didn’t buy a fancy car and didn’t HELOC the house!” [I know we do that kind of bragging around here, but I don't think it's a universal thing- yet.]
MikeC-
I thought the funniest was when I was visiting an elderly friend of mine. She answered the phone and told a phone solicitor in a sad and broken voice, Sir- I’m an elderly woman on a fixed income. I barely have the money for essentials, and I feel so bad when people call trying to sell me things I can’t afford. I have terrible arthritis and it’s very difficult and painful for me to get to the phone. It is so disappointing to make that effort and have it be a solicitor.
I had tears in my eyes when she hung up. Then she started laughing and said, It get’s them every time!
Igor’s astounded, but I’m not. My friend was one sharp lady.
The phone companies make a lot of money off those annoying calls. With no legislation against these people it seems someone else probably is too.
John, I really know what you are talking about. I LOUVRE your idea re hitting 3 digits on the telephone to automatically report a telemarketer and have them pay a fine. What a GREAT idea. Remember spam in the beginning? Same thing.
Every time I get a T.M. call, I note the date and time and send a detailed email to Bell complaining. They always get back to me very quickly to either tell me the T.M. are not telemarketers but they are actually a credit collection agency fishing for information, or they work out of the country and not subject to our laws. I often cc the companies who the telemarketers claim to work for and some of them email me back to say they are not affiliated with these TM’s at all, AT ALL, and they are very sorry (today’s anti-spam word) I am going through this.
I contacted Canada’s Do Not Contact list yesterday and asked them to remove my home number from their database as the telemarketing calls have started to pour in SINCE I added my name to their DNC list last fall 2008.
What a total joke . Then I contacted Bell and told them I would cancel my Bell telephone line as soon as my contract expires. What the he11 do I need this useless landline phone for anyway? The only people who call me are trying to scam me into a curise so they can have me trapped for a timeshare presentation. Everybody else who I love is on Facebook
And I have Skype. And a cell phone.
Plus I’m reading The Long Emergency and I now realize that soon we won’t have electricity to run these things anwqay…, so won’t be long until telemarketers are gone the way of the doo doo bird.
Twist:
That elderly lady does sound like a smart cookie! Reminds me also of that old Gilda Radner role on Saturday Night Live… as the old lady doing long ranting news commentary but misunderstanding everything she hears. That might be another thing to try out with telemarketers – I wonder how patient they would be with somebody they cannot even have a conversation with!
Hmm.. so possible improv roles to play when the telemarketer calls
- sleazy creepy guy
- sad senior with arthritis
- hard-of-hearing person that goes on long rants about topics based on misunderstandings
- person with very bad memory? (String the telemarketer along and then suddenly forget who they are and what they are calling about. After a couple iterations of this, reveal that you have very poor short-term memory…)
Looney:
>>What the he11 do I need this useless landline
>> phone for anyway?
Are you sure about that?
The phone companies will be ecstatic. They can and do gouge customers much more readily with cellphone contracts than with the much more regulated landlines.
(sent everybody John’s suggestion, ha hah ah)
From: fcollazz via RT (privacy@req.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca)
Sent: January 27, 2009 8:48:06 PM
To: looney
Hello, Thank you for your comment. The CRTC is aware of this issue (Captain speaking calls) and is actively pursuing violators.
This is a very serious violation of the National DNCL Rules and the contract the Telemarketer enters into when subscribing to the National DNCL.
Regards,
Centre of Excellence NDNCL
http://www.lnnte-dncl.gc.ca
Tel: 1-866-580-3625
p.s. Mike, re use of landline phones: you can call your landline friends using Skype on your computer for very low rates, but I understand, not for everybody.
True story from yesterday afternoon:
Phone rang, and the Tucson Better Business Bureau’s name and number flashed on the caller ID.
Since most of my clientele comes from academia, and they’ve been a happy bunch of late, it would be highly unlikely that any of them would have said “Sic ‘em!” to the BBB. So, I let voice mail catch the call.
It was a message from someone wanting to speak to “the owner of the company.”
Boy, does that reek of impersonal cold calling. Jeez, fella, when I call a prospective client, I get the name of who I’m calling and refer to that name when I’m leaving a message.
And, indulge me for a moment while I share a little backgrounder on the local BBB: They recently fired their longtime director. And he was a very popular guy around Tucson. Last I heard, he had retained an attorney for a possible wrongful termination suit.
I’ll betcha that the BBB’s hitting the phones to find some replacements for all the members they lost when they fired that longtime director.
Slim-
I don’t know what was with Igor this morning- he grabbed your comment.
I think he’s sorry though, he says he’s “forlorn”
twist -
The body-shop guy received a TM call (on his cell!) while he was punching up the estimate for my scratch. The service receptionist leaned in with the information that he’s been getting “your warranty may be expiring” on his (*chortle*) 12-year-old beater. The dealership is in complete consensus that *419 would be a fine idea
“Angry!” adds Igor.
John-
The last I got a “warranty” call, I Googled the phone number- and found a LOT of unhappy people had been hit by these guys. Clearly they are covering North America.
It would be lovely if *419- or anything else- would shut these turkeys down.
To complicate all these matters, it is not difficult for people to mask their phone number with any phone number they want on your call display (It may be illegal, but my understanding is that it is not difficult)
This was made very obvious when a friend was dealing with a scammer answering a Craigslist advertisement…and the number of the caller showed up as something like (123)456-7890
Google Tom Mabe. He loves to talk to telemarketers…hilarity ensues.